I'm curious to see what kind of ads people use to advertise their comic with.

I'm particularly interested to see how many people use art straight form their comic and how many create new art just for their ads, so I'm posting a poll about that one.
But let's just talk about ads in general. Post any fun/interesting/successful/whatever ads you've used._________________My webcomic: Mischief in Maytia
http://maytiacomic.com/

Last edited by Marscaleb on Wed Mar 06, 2013 10:24 pm; edited 2 times in total

My most recent ads are slightly modified art from the book covers. The other ad series that I ran frequently was versions of the banner I originally made for my website (one version is used here in my sig). Both were repurposed art, but never appeared in actual comic. What do those count as?

I've also made brand new art and used modified panels from the comic. I've even tried B/W (or at least monotone) ads. I've done it all._________________

The other ad series that I ran frequently was versions of the banner I originally made for my website (one version is used here in my sig). Both were repurposed art, but never appeared in actual comic. What do those count as?

Dang, it won't let me change the wording in the poll. But I'd say that art that doesn't appear in the comic itself, even if it wasn't made originally for an ad, would count as "new art."
We'll just count that fourth poll option as "Art not featured in the comic itself."

And while it would certainly be a debatable point, I would personally consider art used for a header on you site as part of the comic. It's featured on every page; if it were printed in the paper it would be those large title pages that get cut in some papers. But I'd leave that decision to the individual.

And speaking of that ad in your signature, whenever I'm not looking directly at it I always think that's a lady drinking a milkshake or other drink from a fast food joint.

Here's one of mine:
Since those button ads are too small to show anything other than your comic's title, I went with this approach:

It got more clicks than anything other than the skyscraper ads, but almost no retained readers._________________My webcomic: Mischief in Maytia
http://maytiacomic.com/

Last edited by Marscaleb on Fri Mar 08, 2013 12:22 am; edited 1 time in total

And speaking of that ad in your signature, whenever I'm not looking directly at it I always think that's a lady drinking a milkshake or other drink from a fast food joint.

I get that a lot. If it weren't so complicated to change the sig images here I'd probably have swapped it out long ago.

Ah, what the heck. Here are some of my ads:

That's from the book cover I mentioned.

Look, a nearly B/W one. I'd forgotten I'd made this series. I rather like it.

I don't think I ever ran this one, because I wasn't confident that it did a good job of selling the comic. What do you think?

EDIT: Oh, and along the lines of experimental ads that got a lot of clicks but didn't retain many readers, I tried this a few years ago:
I suppose it got me clicks from curious people who might not otherwise have clicked, but it had a very limited shelf life (couldn't run it post-Valentines Day) and I don't think many of those new folks stuck around. Eh, but isn't that always the case._________________

To be fair, that answer refers to the now-complete Casual notice comic. Nebraska City is on a short hiatus while I hunt down a dns problem (half the major routing servers still report my old IP as the current one) and get some other shit together. I won't be advertising it until I have an archive of at least 10 comics._________________Casual Notice--commentary, comics and an appreciation for snappy hats.S*P*Q*R

All but two of my ads have featured entirely new artwork, though all of it pretty representative of what you can expect from the comic itself. The two that did feature art from the actual comic were different variations of the same advert. Just swapping out a section of one panel with a section from a slightly newer one. For the rest I drew the art specially keeping in mind the ad space sizes and spacing for lettering.

ttallan wrote:

If it weren't so complicated to change the sig images here I'd probably have swapped it out long ago.

ttallan, I REALLY like that leaderboard. I would click it if I didn't already know about your comic and occasionally visit it. I don't see why you couldn't keep running the blind date ad, I'd be inclined to click it but I think the people who click would be expecting something lesss... sci-fi and more romantic manga. Even if your comic might class kind of as one of those. In space.

Sometimes I do like it when people whose comics I already know about run neat ads because then I'll go oh maybe I should catch up, that art looks sweet, I want to see where it came from. And maybe that's in part why I only like from-the-comic art? I don't mind color added to B/W, but I really hate when someone with say, a pencil lineart manga comic uses their full color painted and rendered cover as an ad. That feels like lying to me.

I use art from my comic because I feel like my art is quality enough to stand on its own. Sometimes there's tiny modifications. Like I'll use the full res, removed from the actual panels without the text, and so sometimes I'll have to paint extra bits to fit the size of the box, or I'll put a person over a new background because it was from a horizontal panel or something and I'm making a vertical ad. Or I assemble from multiple panels. But it's always art from the comic.

Frankly I haven't advertised much for a while due to indefinite hiatus but soon yes soooon. Oh yeah ads!

I did my best with these ads.

Two panels, straight from comic. If you ever found my comic you probably found it through this ad because I used it and variations a lot, it got hits that read.

One panel, straight from comic. If I did it again though I'd touch her up.

This one is my cheatiest successful one, because it might have been three panels but there was a lot of manip-work.
_________________

I just threw something together for Project Wonderful that fit the specs. The image never appeared anywhere else. Though I used the red lettering logo. I could have spent more time on it, but who has time?!?!?_________________Ed Womack